in the house,sandylevin, thatcalled for this legislation. the speaker was going to bring it up to kill it but he couldn't kill it. and then we moved to albany b, b, -- plan b, the debacle of all debacles. it's the mother of all debacles. that was brought up in an effort to send us something. he couldn't even pass it among republicans, it was so absurd, he meaning the speaker. so it's very clear now, mr. president, that the speaker's number-one goal is to get elected speaker on january 3. the house is not even here. he's told me he will give them two days to get back here, 48 hours. not two days. 48 hours. they don't even have enough of the leadership here to meet to talk about it. they have done it with conference calls. people are spread all over this country because the speaker basically is waiting for january 3. now, the president campaigned on raising taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year. the bush-era tax cuts will expire at the end of this year. obama was elected with a surplus of about three million votes. he won the election. he campaigned on this issue. again, the s